My Roller Coaster Ride with Subodh Chandra

I went into the MTB interview with Attorney General candidate Subodh Chandra with high expectations. An acquaintance from the Kerry campaign invited me to a fundraiser for him; a friend from the RON campaign is working for him. I respect both of their opinions and their opinions are high.

I also know what it means that he gets accolades for cleaning up the Cleveland Law Department. I worked with a refugee from the Mike White-era Law Department. As troublesome as the environment was in the office where we met, he said his previous gig was so much worse it didn't faze him. Trust me, that was saying something.

I also went in with an above-average appreciation for importance of the AG race. I worked on the Lee Fisher campaign when he lost to Betty Montgomery. I worked as a prosecutor throughout the Montgomery administration. I remember how hopeful my bosses were by her engagement on criminal justice issues and how disappointing she was as she politicized the office. I also fumed as she ran for reelection as the woman who revamped the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, but failed to advocate for the resouces to fully fund it.

So like I said, high expectations. Unfortunately, Chandra started to lose me early on. In a discussion of H.B. 3, he says that it's unconstitutional and his instructions to Board of Elections would be not to enforce it. Here's the thing. The AG's job includes defending State laws from challenge. When Richard Cordray ran for AG on a platform of not defending the State's position in the DeRolph case, I felt he was grandstanding and he lost my vote. (No I didn't vote for Montgomery. I wrote in my wife.)

Chandra believes that the AG's job in the first instance is to be "the people's lawyer." Because he swears an oath to uphold the Constitution, he has no duty to "defend the indefensible." At the farthest margins, this is persuasive (though at least arguable.) The problem is how the AG makes the determination.

I believe Chandra would agree with me that an AG's personal belief that a statute is unconstititional, with nothing more, is insufficient. At the same time, I believe he is is saying that he would be willing to declare a statute indefensible even without clear controlling authority. How that middle ground is sliced up is everything in this discussion and, unfortunately, working through that methodology would take the better part of an hour in itself. I certainly didn't get a satisfactory answer to the two questions I asked to get at it.

Also giving me pause was his pledge to take public entities to court for failing to comply with the law. He mentioned specifically taking Blackwell to court for he registration form shenanigans during a hypothetical Chandra administration and at least threatening to take the legislature to court for failing to comply with Derolph.

Again, this runs afoul of the traditional view of the AG's office as the attorney for the public entitites he is threatening to file against. Generally the law frowns upon suing one's own clients.

My view of Chandra bounced back up during a discussion after the recording period. George wanted to limit the time for practical reasons, but Chandra was willing to talk further. I followed up on the notion of suing statutory clients, which led to a wide-ranging, highly technical discussion which you all are mercifully spared listening to.

The upshot is that Chandra understands the thorny issues confronting him and will proceed cautiously. That's all I ask. I agree with him on the issues, but as a lawyer, I don't want any elected official overreaching his authority.

Meanwhile, I couldn't help but be impressed by his intellect, his encyclopedic knowledge of Attorneys General throughout the U.S. and his smooth but unassuming conversational style. He is a formidable candidate who understands the untapped potential for good in the Ohio Attorney Generals' office.